porate capitalism, took their places, artists searched for new defini-
tions of and uses for art in a changed world.
Already in the 19th century, each successive modernist move-
ment—Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism—had chal-
lenged artistic conventions with ever-greater intensity. This relentless
challenge gave rise to the avant-garde (“front guard”), a term derived
from 19th-century French military usage. The avant-garde were sol-
diers sent ahead of the army’s main body to reconnoiter and make
occasional raids on the enemy. Politicians who deemed themselves
visionary and forward-thinking subsequently adopted the term. It
then migrated to the art world in the 1880s, where it referred to
artists who were ahead of their time and who transgressed the limits
of established art forms.
These artists were the vanguard, or trailblazers. The avant-garde
rejected the classical, academic, and traditional, and zealously ex-
plored the premises and formal qualities of painting, sculpture, and
other media. The Post-Impressionists were the first artists labeled
avant-garde. Although the general public found avant-garde art in-
comprehensible, the principles underlying late-19th-century mod-
ernism appealed to increasing numbers of artists as the 20th century
dawned. Avant-garde artists in all their diversity became a major
force during the first half of the 20th century and beyond.
Avant-garde principles emerged forcefully in European art of
the early 1900s in the general movement that art historians call
Expressionism,a term used over the years in connection with a wide
range of art. At its essence, Expressionism refers to art that is the re-
sult of the artist’s unique inner or personal vision and that often has
an emotional dimension. This contrasts strongly with most Western
art produced since the Renaissance that focused on visually describ-
ing the empirical world. The term “Expressionism” first gained cur-
rency after Der Sturm,an avant-garde periodical initially published
in Munich, popularized it.
Fauvism
One of the first movements to tap into this pervasive desire for
expression was Fauvism.In 1905, at the third Salon d’Automne in
Paris, a group of young painters exhibited canvases so simplified
in design and so shockingly bright in color that a startled critic,
Louis Vauxcelles (1870–1943), described the artists as fauves (wild
beasts). The Fauves were totally independent of the French Acad-
emy and the “official” Salon (see “Academic Salons and Indepen-
dent Art Exhibitions,” Chapter 31, page 823). Driving the Fauve
movement was a desire to develop an art having the directness of
Impressionism but also embracing intense color juxtapositions and
their emotional capabilities.
Building on the legacy of artists such as van Gogh and Gauguin
(see Chapter 31), Fauve artists went even further in liberating color
from its descriptive function and using it for both expressive and
structural ends. They produced portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and
nudes of spontaneity and verve, with rich surface textures, lively lin-
ear patterns, and, above all, bold colors. The Fauves employed star-
tling contrasts of vermilion and emerald green and of cerulean blue
and vivid orange held together by sweeping brush strokes and bold
patterns. Thus, these artists explored both facets of Expressionism.
They combined outward expression, in the form of a bold release
of internal feelings through wild color and powerful, even brutal,
brushwork, and inward expression, awakening the viewer’s emotions
by these very devices.
The Fauve painters never officially organized, and the looseness
of both personal connections and stylistic affinities caused the Fauve
movement to begin to disintegrate almost as soon as it emerged.
Within five years, most of the artists had departed from a strict ad-
herence to Fauve principles and developed their own, more personal
styles. During the brief existence of the movement, however, the
Fauve artists made a remarkable contribution to the direction of
painting by demonstrating color’s structural, expressive, and aes-
thetic capabilities.
HENRI MATISSE The dominant figure of the Fauve group was
Henri Matisse(1869–1954), who believed that color could play a
primary role in conveying meaning and focused his efforts on devel-
oping this premise. In an early painting,Woman with the Hat (FIG.
35-2), Matisse depicted his wife Amélie in a rather conventional
manner compositionally, but the seemingly arbitrary colors imme-
diately startle the viewer, as does the sketchiness of the forms. The
entire image—the woman’s face, clothes, hat, and background—
consists of patches and splotches of color juxtaposed in ways that
sometimes produce jarring contrasts. Matisse explained his ap-
proach: “What characterized fauvism was that we rejected imitative
colors, and that with pure colors we obtained stronger reactions.”^1
For Matisse and the Fauves, therefore, color became the formal ele-
ment most responsible for pictorial coherence and the primary con-
veyor of meaning (see “Matisse on Color,” page 912).35-2Henri Matisse,Woman with the Hat,1905. Oil on canvas,
2 73 – 4 1 11 –^12 . San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
(bequest of Elise S. Haas).
Matisse portrayed his wife Amélie using patches and splotches of
seemingly arbitrary colors. He and the other Fauve painters used color
not to imitate nature but to produce a reaction in the viewer.Europe, 1900 to 1920 9111 ft.35-2AMATISSE,
Le Bonheur
de Vivre,
1905–1906.